


Reality

by Fionir



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Anal Sex, Eye Trauma, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, M/M, Oral Sex, POV First Person, POV Juno Steel, Rimming, Scars, The Penumbra Podcast Season 1, all the space metaphors, traumatic memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:40:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26758135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionir/pseuds/Fionir
Summary: Usually I didn’t get to see the faces of those hired to kill me; they send drones or little ticking packages, wouldn’t even bother sending actual people at… wait. If they were here to kill me, why wasn’t I dead yet?Then I heard the chuckle. I would recognize it anywhere. The horror washed away in the current of emotions that I had been trying to drown in drinks for days.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Kudos: 20





	Reality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackShadow15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackShadow15/gifts).



> Welcome to my descent into the Penumbra.  
> My good friend Shadow brougt me here; we listened to season 1 so far and had to take a little break so...  
> I don't know what else is already there, but I will soon. In the meanwhile I just needed to get this out of my system.  
> I would request you good people to hold back on spoilers past season one though, if you decide to write me a lovely comment. Which I would very much appreciate.  
> Critical ones, too, because I like to improve.  
> But I wont hold you any longer and hope you can enjoy this little piece.

My head hurt, or I was pretty sure it had at some point. It had calmed into a dull drumming when I opened my eye again. I almost expected the morning sun blinding me, but the light was still dimm, pleasant. I sighed.   
Then I saw the shape standing in the corner and pulled my gun. I’ve been here enough times. My aim wasn’t what is used to, though, so maybe this would be the last. Usually I didn’t get to see the faces of those hired to kill me; they send drones or little ticking packages, wouldn’t even bother sending actual people at… wait. If they were here to kill me, why wasn’t I dead yet? Should have been easy enough. It was a feat of its own to sneak up on me, even when I was asleep. The life of a private Eye did that to you. 

My name is Juno Steel and even by my standards, this didn’t make any sense.

For a moment my mind jerked back to days… weeks… trapped underground. Miasma's thoughts haunted me to this day. Ever self certain, greedy… making the hole, where once my eye was throbb in an echo of pain. Then I heard the chuckle. I would recognize it anywhere. The horror washed away in the current of emotions that I had been trying to drown in drinks for days. I should have recognized the smell. It came to me only now and a part of me hoped it would cling to every surface in here like it had the first time.    
I didn’t wonder how he got in here; he probably could get anywhere. I lowered my weapon, losing grip and will. It clanged to the ground. I held my head, joining his laughter.   
“You came back,” I muttered, senseless, breathless, hopeless. Then I turned my head and looked over. What if he was here to kill me. With how I left him… no… no even with his face in the shadow I couldn’t see that in him. Not anymore.

“Of course I did, Juno.” His voice was the same smooth silk I remembered, like balm, cool and calm and ever so… him. Peter Nureyev. One of a kind. My heart beat, a traitor inside my own chest… I guess that’s what this city did to everyone. Not to him though. Maybe it was a good thing he had no intent of staying. I didn’t want him to turn into this… “I couldn’t exactly expect _ you _ to…” Nureyev said not bitter, not angry. Though he would have had every right to be. I kind of wished he was. It would have made this easier. “...I have to say, I would have taken you for more of a gentleman, Juno Steel.”   
Sure, me, a gentleman, somehow people kept getting that wrong all the time; despite my best efforts. I didn’t humor him with a response. “I thought you’d be halfway across the galaxy by now,” I said instead.   
He leaned forward, the city lights from the window catching in his glasses. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the smile on his lips looked far too kissable. “Don’t kid yourself, Juno. I wouldn’t have gotten further than Jupiter in this time…”   
“Point still stands.” I brushed that off. Talking to Nureyev was like dancing with words, always spinning around each other. It was like the stupid card game, only without the cards and luckily without the colleteral. But when it came to questions, there were plenty. “What are you doing here? What happened to leaving for good? To all the incredible futures ahead?”    
He just chuckeled and for a momet I felt very stupid for thinking I was the one to ask anything here. I just wanted him to leave… and stay… and just get the fuck over here already, so we could stop with the talking. “Well, Juno, what happened to your words?” Nureyev said, lips curling upwards, showing that toothy grin of his. “Am I to pick and choose which one you mean, words or actions? Because I know which one I’d rather take.”   
I had no words for that, no actions either. I just laid there folding my arm across my face, head still dizzy. “Goodbyes aren’t really my thing,” I said. My voice came out smaller than it should have. 

“Your speech before your heroic sacrifice tells me otherwise.” Of course he brought that up. I closed my eye beneath my arm and tried to clear my thoughts. In my mind, moments flash by, too fast to clearly remember; a stomach twisting visage, a nightmare of a memory. And swimming on top of that ocean the words I had said in between gunshots; in between gorey splatter coating a room. The mattress shifted and my arm was removed by unbelievably... unreasonably gentle hands. “That would have been one dramatic goodbye…” Nureyev said. Now there was nothing left to look at but his eyes.

“It should have been.” I said in a sigh. It had been supposed to be.

Nureyev leaned down, his breath tingling across my lips. “Agree to disagree,” he mumbled and left me no time to talk back. I was fine with that. I was fine with anything that wasn’t talking, because with him around… I kept saying things that I would only regret later. Hoping for something that I didn’t deserve. Like with the way his kisses felt. A promise, a secret stolen from a vault somewhere beyond the horizon and clouded in that cologne of his. One should think I would have learned that lesson by now, but my heart kept yearning to see where it came from. What other secrets were there to steal.   
I had seen his past; maybe the biggest secret in the galaxy but I still didn’t know who Peter Nureyev was. Why he crashed through my roof, like a shooting star or how I was ever supposed to cover the crater he left. The master thief without a name.   
Who needed those anyway, when the truth was far easier to just lick right from his lips. Only problem was, I was pretty sure he could do just the same.

His touch always felt too gentle, but it sent shivers up my spine that betrayed my thoughts. It should have only been that one time. That one time when the world had still felt like floating, before I opened my eye again to find myself in the same pile of shit I was in before. And he should have been far away by now, but everything my hands wanted was to pull him closer.   
The universe had played a couple jokes on me, real thigh-slappers, but this might just be the cruelest one.   
“So what is it, Juno?” His lip hovered over mine. “Words or actions?” God damn it.

My hand pulled him in, teeth clicking together as I shut that mouth of his, before he could say anything else. Where his touch was too soft, mine must feel like grinding paper. All the scrapes and scars and bruises, they didn’t make for anything nice to look at. But his eyes disagreed. Looked at me with that same look he’d had that first day. Like he trusted me to turn the whole galaxy around for him.    
Somehow he had kept mine spinning. The room was spinning. My head was, as he kissed the air from my lungs and let his fingers run up the scar on my arm; the one where he had patched me up. ‘Remember?’ His touch asked. Another hand was traveling up my neck, jawline, cheek. I stopped it, before it could reach the eye that was no longer there, and he let off. His fingers dug in my neck instead and he climbed onto the bed straddling my hips. His lips disappeared, then his fingers, trailing skin. His hips shifted back, mostly utilitary but the smile on his lips was teasing. For a moment his hands were off me and I closed my eye in a sigh.   
I heard fabric rustling, a whiff of his cologne brushing past my nose, before the silk slid onto the floor. I blinked up at him. 

He was a sight, alright.   
Always had been. And he sat on my lap like a queen on a throne. Smiling like he knew he belonged right there to reign above everything he wanted to be his. Looking down at me like… like… His lips perked up smugly, then his hands reached down, pulling me up. I pulled up my legs, making him a seat on my thighs as I followed his guide. I sat up, he loomed over, eyes turned down half lidded. He dipped down for another kiss, while his hands found the hem of my shirt. His lips were gone far too soon again.   
He pulled it over my head and I obliged, arms lifted. He was careful, holding the neck away when it went past my face. Mine joined his clothing on the floor with a dull thud. His fingers were making a map of the scars on my shoulders, my breast… counting, checking, as if he feared… hoped there could have been new ones since we parted ways. I parted ways. I leaned back, resting onto my elbows, eye fixed on his. He was looking at me, dark and deep and… I wasn’t sure how I had managed to walk away from him that night.

I only knew I didn’t deserve a second of this; of him.   
But somehow he was here anyway. There were no clues to that mystery that I could read, it was vast and wide as the galaxy… unaccounted for like the planets he had seen or the names he had taken on over the years. He was a mystery and maybe that was what drew me back to him. If that was it, he was a mystery I didn’t want to solve.   
Peter Nureyev. I had learned to treasure that name by now. 

He was beautiful like that, always an edge to his smiles, a hidden meaning on his lips, another trick up his sleeves and I couldn’t wait for the next surprise. I had been a fool to think that I could disappear on him. He was the expert in disappearances after all; And, well… It wasn’t like I had tried to hide. I was exactly where I had always been.

I just wouldn’t have thought, he’d come looking for me. That he’d come back for me once more.    
I almost hadn’t believed it the first time.   
Almost.

But some part of me had decided to trust this reckless fool. I had soaked up the light he brought into this gloomy corner of the galaxy and I still couldn’t stand the way my shadow only seemed to stretch into eternity when he was around. He wasn’t someone to ‘swing in on a beam of starlight’ he was the goddamn beam and I’m not sure how he survived shining that bright in a world that was looking to sniff out every last candle in existence. “Oh, you aren’t going to be silent all night, are you?” That line rang familiar, but I couldn’t place where from.

That one night should have been the only night, because Nureyev’s hands learned far too quickly. Of course they did; with a life like his, they had to… 

He knew where to touch to draw little humms and sighs. He lifted his weight, rocking his hips and his hands were all over me. I wasn’t sure where mine had gone, they were just doing their own thing, feeling his skin, soft like velvet.   
“I can think of something, I’d rather do with my mouth,” I said grinning up at him. I felt the bulge in his pants rubbing against my thigh. 

He cocked a brow and straightened his back. “By all means, Juno, don’t let me stop you.” He said towering over me, giving up the lead like it was the easiest thing in the world. It was still unfathomable how he trusted me more than I could ever do myself.   
He followed my cues, like it was second nature.   
It was strange how easy it was to move around him. He had a way of bending himself that would make everything a dance, even around my clumsy limbs. I pushed myself back up, hip meeting his before he swung us around sprawling onto the mattress underneath me. His eyes didn’t leave mine, not until I leaned in to kiss my way down his body. One of his hands stroked my hair in soft encouragement. My fingers grated down his side, like sand paper on wax. But he wasn’t that fragile and everything beside my own head told me he graved my touch as much as I did his. I fidgeted with his high waist pants, mouthing at his stomach, tongue dipping into his belly button, playfully. He chuckled and wiggled his hips. The button sprang open then and I backed off to pull the clothes off him; down his long, spidery legs. His pants were skin tight but they slid right off.   
I wasn’t half as graceful as he could be. I also was far too aware of that defect. All the tiny defects, yet his eyes looked at me like I was some kind of artwork. I couldn’t look back, I could however look at the rest of him. He was easily the most beautiful thing I had ever seen sprawled out on that filthy bed sheet… It was a crime.

He didn’t belong here.   
He belonged somewhere on the night sky, between the stars; somewhere framed on a wall, like the piece of art he was… but… no… Peter Nureyev couldn’t be captured like that. He also didn’t fit into my art collection. His doodles might though, would fit right next to that first note of his that I still kept in a safe place. It made me feel like I was the thief, stealing this treasure away from the rest of the galaxy.

Well, I could always hand myself in later. There were enough people who would revel, seeing me behind bars. They might be lucky one day. Not today, though.   
  
Nureyev was posing, waiting. Enjoying being looked at, because he always was one to put on a show. I licked my lips. He purred impatiently, one hand sliding down his hip, presenting himself. I got up and struggled out of my own pants. Better to get that done now than return to it later and ruin the mood again. Another addition to our shared pile of clothing on the floor.   
When I climbed back onto the bed he spread his legs around me, hand wandering down his thigh and up mine, fingertips barely reaching. I kneeled between his thighs, eye trailing up the length of him. Before I had to look at his face I turned away, ran a hand along the underside of his leg and pulled his knee up. I leaned down, other hand on his hip; my lips started trailing kisses up his leg. His cologne was strong enough to leave an aroma, even though he could not possibly have used it down here… or would he? 

I glanced up, finding his eyes on me. Heat rose to my face. He smiled and let his head drop back into the pillow, letting me figure this out on my own again. This wasn’t my first time doing this, alright. It was just that the way he made me feel; it was hard to work with. Hard to not get nervous. I let his leg go, as I came closer to where his dick was resting on his stomach; on a well trimmed bed of hair. I teased lips wandering up, nibbling at his hip bone, taking a good lung full of that impossible smell. 

His hand was in my hair again, combing, stroking, not pushing. I wished he would. Last time he had taken control. He had held me, led me gently and slowly until he had found the right ways to do so, ever considerate. There was a comfort in that. Nureyev knew what he wanted. I wasn’t sure I could measure up to it, but I could sure try.   
I brought a hand down to his balls and dipped my head lower, tongue first. I licked down his length and he hummed my name. 

“Juno.” 

That was all the encouragement I needed. I sucked and he melted into my hands, hips writhing underneath my mouth, playing into my touch. I started at the base, working my way up. My hand held his dick, while I let my tongue twirl around the tip. He wasn’t shy with his voice, wordless noises guiding me. In the end, he was the one setting the pace yet again, nimble, even when he was spread out like that. My hands moved to his thighs supporting him; holding him up, while my head bobbed up and down, taking him deeper every time. I got a good taste of him, before his hand in my hair tugged and I pulled off, licking my lips.  
I shifted back and pushed his thighs a little higher. He brought his hands down to support his back. I met his eyes briefly, he understood my plan, a spark of excitement in his lidded look. Then his face shifted in hesitance. “Oh my, Juno… I haven’t -”   
I knew what he was going to say, I didn’t care and lowered my head; buried my nose between his thighs. The delicious groan he gave when I licked around the twitching muscle cut his words off. He inhaled and I smiled to myself, before dipping my tongue working him in slow circles.   
“I knew you had a sharp tongue, detective, but I wasn’t aware you’d rather use it like that.” Nureyev’s voice was shallow, dripping with sass and excitement. If he was still able to talk like that I wasn’t doing enough yet. I changed my hold on him. One arm below his tailbone, the other on it’s way to the front. His dick was still slick with spit and I gave it a lazy stroke, two… before I pushed my tongue in deeper. My own dick was pressed between my belly and my thighs. I felt it throbbing. I wasn’t really keen on paying it any attention; not yet.  
Not when I had Nureyev making the most beautiful moans.  
The dance of his hips became less controlled. “Oh please, Juno…” he groaned. I slowed down. Lazily licked over his hole with a squelch. I had had no goal in mind when I had started this, but when I looked up to meet his eyes his goal was clear. Heat rose to my face, a nervous but excited twitch between my thighs.  
“Fuck,” I muttered falling back.

“Yes, please,” Nureyev answered a laugh in his voice. I hesitated. 

I hesitated, too long. He closed his legs around me and turned us around once more. My eye went wide; but then I saw him sitting there on top of me again… I relaxed; let my legs stretch out. His dick was next to mine, hip slowly rocking. He knew how to keep himself entertained.   
He brought his hand up to my mouth and I obeyed without a word. I couldn’t look away. I felt slender fingers wrap around my dick, gingerly move until I forgot to breath.

I tilted my head back, mouth wide open, but without a sound.   
Nureyev chuckled, deep and throaty and promising. His second hand cupped my breast, one of them, squeezing; His fingernails scratched over my rips, followed the net of marks and scars like drawing patterns in the stars. They were sharp but gentle. I opened my eye, when I felt his weight shift. I wanted to say something, but he kissed the words from my lips, out of my heart and left my mind blank.   
“Where-,” he started asking.

“Top drawer,” I answered short on air. He rocked his hips again, dick pressing against mine and my breath hitched. He just leaned over, body long enough to reach and pull the bottle from the night stand. I closed my eye, trying to catch myself. The lube squelched, when he poured it into his hand; slick sounds promising what my dick was already throbbing for.

The suspense was the best… and the worst.

“I want to ride you, Juno Steel,” his voice dragged my name out. “Is that ok?”   
My throat was dry. “More than ok,” I breathed and hissed, when his hand closed around me again, slick, a little cold but oh so good. He moved, thighs back around my waist, almost like we had started off. This wasn’t like that night. That night he had wrung me out and filled me up until I had forgotten what planet we were on.   
Maybe that’s why I crashed so hard, when I landed back in reality.    
  
One of his hands caught my jaw, turning my head back toward him, away from the memory. “Don’t walk away from me,” his voice sounded strange, distant. I blinked, he smiled, eyes eating me up. “Some assistance down here,” he requested his tone back to his playful seduction. His inevitable charme, the sheath to the razor sharp wit… I felt it like a knife at my throat. He had come back and caught me in my lie; the biggest lie of them all.   
I was a coward.   
And I wasn’t enough for a man like Peter Nureyev; but I couldn’t refuse him either way. Resist him. Because what I had said was true. He was the best thing that had ever happened to me. And that’s exactly why I had walked away.   
Because with me around, good things got ruined.   
Oh, did I want to ruin Peter Nureyev as he spread his own buttcheeks and sank down so delicsiously slowly. No part of me would have dared to dream about this ever happening to me. My breath came out as a moan, and he answered it with a husky sigh; audible breath, little hicks in his voice and mine as he slid around me. So warm. So tight.   
My hands were back on his hips, holding on, hips straining upward as he started moving. My fingers dug into silk skin, soft but strong. Without fault or falter. I could do nothing but hold on as he rode me across the galaxy. Rocked his hips, drawing his own moans. His hands found hold on my chest, dark eyes sparking in mischief before he tilted his head back. Two of his finger’s pinched my nipples. I bend my back, meeting him with a thrust; quicker, deeper, until I saw stars.   
All the stars I could have seen with him.

There was a pressure on my ears drowning out his words and mine. My orgasm caught me like a solar storm; a burst of heat and energy that surged through and burst out all the lights. Exhaustion came quickly, the world fading into black.

Leaving me with an empty mind.

Nothingness.   
  


  
  


My head was throbbing. Less so, than I had expected after what I drank last night, but I was pretty sure habit wasn’t going to make this better in the long run. Was willing to give it a shot though. When I opened my eye the sun was too bright, stung in my brain like a needle.   
I groaned and hid my face in the crook of my elbow.   
There still was a dull pain, when it touched the wound. I lifted my arm away and turned to look at the opposite corner of the shabby place I call home. The memory of cologne still lingered in my nose; but it was just that. A memory.    
My name is Juno Steel, Private Eye.    
Welcome back to reality. 


End file.
